My first new Intel CPU in over 10 years.

[ALXAndy]

Wow. It really has been that long. Or more.

IIRC the last new Intel CPU I bought was a I7 950 in like, 2009. Since then I mainly used cheap ES workstation CPUs because I wanted the lanes and cores.

My last two have been a Ryzen 3600 (most recently) for my "away" rig and a 3950x in March of 2020 for my "home" rig.

I fully intended to stay on AMD, but tbh they are kinda taking the biscuit a bit on their prices. I expected them to drop more than they have, let's just say that.

I wanted to buy either a 5900x or 5950x to replace the 3950x at home (for gaming) and then shift the 3950x into the 3600 box at my mother's, as that is where I use the cores more (home is just gaming now, have shifted all of my "tools" to my mother's). But man, £450 for a 5900x. Just seems way too much, and the 5950x?.

So, given OCUK's far too tempting price on the 12700KF I got one of those to go where the 3950x is now. I bought the z690 Aorus Elite DDR4, as in that rig I have 32gb 8 pack 4133 memory (that's been running at just under 3700 with the 3950x).



Which is about a thousand times better looking than what I currently have in there.



I'm actually quietly excited. I can flog the 3600 and X570 minger board as well. Going to upgrade the cooler too. When I got the 3950x I decided to spend more on the CPU, RAM and GPU (got a 2080Ti Kingpin) rather than on a better looking board and cooler. So the one I use now is the base model H100 (Coolit) and I have a H100i Platinum to replace it (better pump, lower temps).

Still can't believe I've gone Intel

 

[ALXAndy]

I can't remember what the second set of 8 pack I bought was rated at. It was either what I had (4133) or faster. I've not studied the difference. Is it big? that said even if it was I spent too much on that RAM lol.

Yeah, the PCIE storage thing was most of the reason I have switched boards. I vowed when I built that PC that I would not fit any SATA crap to it. Little did I realise how quickly the 2tb in NVME in there would get eaten by bloated modern games. And the price jump from 1tb to 2tb on NVME is mental.

Four sockets on the Aorus. Stoked !

 

[ALXAndy]

8pack ram is 3200 or 3600?

Nah man not this. I know the first set I bought was 4133. It was my first Ryzen rig (well, aside from the 1920X TR I was running in a workstation/server) so I was a bit green. Tried to DOCP it and it refused to boot with a lovely red message LOL.

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/team...4133mhz-dual-channel-kit-black-my-099-tg.html

That was what I bought for it originally. At that time I was still doing all of my graphic stuff at home home (not away) and 16gb started to creak. So I bought another kit from the MM for £80. It's currently all running just under 3700 with CL15. Will be nice to stretch its legs.

 

[ALXAndy]

Good to know, thanks.



That's the most recent pic I have. Was the same, only the writing on the top was different which was cool because it alternates.

 

[ALXAndy]

What can go wrong.... 'sake.

I knew I wasn't going to be here today for the delivery. So I changed it to my nextdoor neighbour. All sorted. When I got back there was a note in my place saying they tried to deliver. To my house. I tracked it, and.



I'm sorry, come again? so you ignored my instructions, and then took it to a business estate 7 miles away. I don't ****** drive So now I am either faced with £30 in taxis or pray I can get a ride after Christmas. In a cruel twist of irony the standoff kit I ordered from Corsair that I expected to take a couple of weeks came today.



*sigh*. If I didn't have crap luck I wouldn't have any.

 

[ALXAndy]

Impressive work getting 3700mhz C15 out of a 1920X. That system will probably give the 12700K a good run for its money.

Ah, sorry for the confusion. I have so many bloody PCs that even I get confused... The 3700ish CL15 is on the 3950x PC. On TR I used Corsair Dom Plats at 3200.

I got my stuff. Thank the heavens.



And instead of running the CPU temps on the ragged edge with the budget cooler I got a new one.

 

[ALXAndy]

I really don't need the I9 for this pc tbh. It's purely for gaming, but still slightly overkill as I am sure I could have gotten away with the 12600.

I needed another cooler as I still have my 1920x, so yeah I'd have been buying a cooler any way.

Need a new server so that will be done next

 

[ALXAndy]

I finally found a couple of videos on YT that were relevant and interesting. It seems Buildzoid has a Aorus Pro which has confirmed that the Elite is the same, with a couple of features removed (like the diag segs) but the VRM is the same.

I also found a video where he overclocked his RAM to 3886 IIRC on the GB board. So I now have the settings I should need, as I don't have the segs to tell me. So I will be watching his channel quite closely, as Gigabyte say the board should do DDR4 up to 5600. Fat chance in heck atm, but if they can get it stable around 4ghz I will be chuffed. For now when I get it running though I will try his 3886 timings and settings and see what happens.

Yeah, deffo didn't need the I9. If I only had one PC? I would have bought it. Thing is I don't, I have three ATM and about to build a fourth so I just wanted something for gaming for the rig it's going in.

 

[ALXAndy]

Mr. 1974, delivered to Matalan??! Id be fuming with DPD

That's my business name. Well, that is what defaulted into the OCUK shipping info page as my business name. When scanned it brings up my full name. I changed the delivery addy to nextdoor as I knew I was going to be out on that day. Seems they missed the memo, tried to deliver it to my address and then took it to Matalan.

As for Asus and MSI? yeah no thanks.

People are complaining about the price of Z690. Which at first? I don't blame them. However, to get the same feature set on a, IMO, much uglier motherboard from Asus (this one)



It would have cost me nearly £100 more. It would have looked even worse than the X570 TUF I have now. Plus let's face it, Asus are not exactly innocent when it comes to things burning up now are they?.

As for MSI? maybe people have gotten lucky, but their lies and continued bad products I have had have put me off for life. And no, I am not referring to their good cheap boards but given I nearly ended up with the X570 that has VRMs on the underside that run at max temp? yeah no thanks.

I'm not paying Asus tax any more. I made that decision after paying £200 for my TUF which is OK but seriously lacking in features. It doesn't even have a USBC front panel connector for my case's header. And people are whining about Z690 prices?

TBH by the time I even plug the thing in (end of next week) I would not be surprised if Gigabyte have already fixed the RAM issues. Even if they haven't I can still get it running over 3800, which from looking around at benchmarks I can clearly see that 3600 is actually faster for gaming than 4100.

 

[ALXAndy]

Normally it would not bother me. Normally I wouldn't give a crap how bright and garish my PC is. I mean, I did build this.



But when I built the PC that this stuff is going in I actually spent a fortune trying to avoid all of that.



The TUF was just about subtle enough. I don't like boards with GAMER and other GAMERY words spattered all over them. I don't understand why the most expensive boards now are the least tasteful tbh. Do people actually want to pay for that? I really, really dig this one. Best looking Z690 IMO



Sadly it was £200 too expensive with features I will never need, let alone use. And that's the crux of it really. I don't want to pay out of the ass for looks (especially if they are loud AF) and I don't want to pay out of the ass for features (because I won't use them) and so on. No point buying a board with a high end sound solution because I took care of that and barely use it any way.



I now use a Dragonfly DAC with amp. So I only use that when I am gaming really.

I don't like MSI's choice of a very camp looking dragon all over their gear, so that usually rules them out, and IMO Gigabyte make the best looking boards (they are even more subtle now, you can't even really pick out the hawk of ghey with light on the board)



And I don't want writing all over my board like some of the ROG stuff. I actually pulled all of that off of the Strix PSU I put in here.

That Pro Art board is spot on. Shame about the features and price. I wish they could dial back their cheaper boards to make them look better. Even the X570 TUF has a horrid theme on it that thankfully doesn't light up to make it even more gaudy.

 

[ALXAndy]

BTW new bios from Gigabyte just launched. F5A. Addresses memory issues.

As I said time I have this in one piece it should do the 4133 xmp.

 

[ALXAndy]

Nah seems it's for the board I got. TBH it wouldn't surprise me if their Aorus boards used the same BIOS.

 

[ALXAndy]

Just checked. Says it's for the elite ddr4 yet mentions ddr5 support.

Odd.

 

[ALXAndy]

Seems Gigabyte don't know how to do Google.

When I double checked it was indeed taking me to the DDR5 version.

 

[ALXAndy]

Are right (RE business name)

Never had any issues so far with my X570 Unify, never once have I seen the motherboard chipset fan even come on, even when benching.
It runs 3600MHz CL16 RAM perfectly at 3800MHz CL14, so cant really complain. I seem to rememeber trying 4000MHz and it booted up on CL16 but hit errors when testing. Though it probably just needed some extra DRAM voltage or board voltage as I left it on XMP settings, CL16.
Thermals seem great, one of the reasons for me getting it was after watching this

The BIOS and drivers are also continually updated on the MSI driver page for the Unify. There was a new BIOS last week i've yet to try. I should give it a go as theres and update for to AMD ComboAm4v2PI 1.2.0.5.

It wasn't that one.

 

[ALXAndy]

ALXANDY where did you get the kingpin 3090 from?

It's a 2080ti dude.

 

[ALXAndy]

RAM fitted.



Then I had to strip pretty much the entire rig. Glad I did though, as the wiring is much better. Going to get a 3D printed cover for the USB header cables.



Cooler was at ma's when I got here.



And the reason why I went with the EK. On the left is an Asetek pump winding. On the right is the one EK use.

 

[ALXAndy]

I realise that the Asetek units work well and give the same temps but man, never seen such a puny pump coil before. I also like how EK give you a choice of the removal of tat for the same product at a much lower price, instead of trying to force it all on you.

 

[ALXAndy]

Well it was a pain in the balls. But not how you would expect it to be.

First thing I did was try and update the BIOS. Only the one on their website from like two days ago won't install. IDK why. I managed to get F5 on there OK. Thankfully my old install of Win 10 still booted, so I was able to do that without digging out another PC to grab stuff. BIOS on.

So then I go looking for the RAID options. Only I can't find it. Go and watch a few videos, but it's not where it is supposed to be. VMD? something like that. Thank god the new bioses on Gigabyte let you search. Found it ! put that in. Then had to reboot to set up the array. Again, had to search for it. Found it. Got the two otherwise useless drives (because they are 256gb, IMO not big enough for a Windows install any more unless you want to keep pruning) and I was off. All I needed was a RAID driver from Intel.

Booted from the 11 stick I made. This happened.



Thought at first it could be the RAID driver, but it wasn't even letting me try. Fruitless searching for ages, then I finally realised I did not have secure boot enabled. TPM was fine, but again I could not find secure boot and nothing was finding it in the search bar. Turns out I had enabled something else, which hides it GRR. An hour later and I was in Win 11. The RAID seems to work just fine lmao.



OK cool we are on a roll ! get all the drivers on, start setting up my proggys and stuff. Then I realise the memory is at 2133. Oh crap, I forgot about that ! went into the BIOS and set it to 3600. No boot, just continual power on/off. Bugger. Reset CMOS, remember to reenable the RAID (PITA) and changed it to 3200. Still the same. Now I was starting to feel a bit sick. So I went back into BIOS and set the XMP. To 4133, base on 4000 (as one set is 4000). It booted, but my god it was far from stable. Steam said it needed reinstalling, eventually it froze. BOOOOO.

So I went back into BIOS and had a look. RAM was running at 1.2v. That's odd, it should be 1.35 ! pushed up the volts with the XMP set and....



And writes.



Am going to start hammering on it in a bit, but TBH? I don't think you can hammer much harder than AIDA 64. That said I still don't feel out of the woods. Still need to put some stuff back together but this is what it looks like now.



Bang tidy. Even the EK logo was the right way up ! I also switched the ZXR for the EVGA.